Johnny Coli

It was my understanding that the House told Bush there was no way this deal was getting done. It's also my understanding that the Senate told him that it probably wouldn't go through. It is also my understanding that both chambers are under GOP control. That's a hell of a lot of influence Senator Schumer has, being in the minority party with no control of any committees. I'm impressed.

Probably right around the same time they came up with "compassionate conservative." I'm not shocked by this story. When you have high school students turning in their social studies teachers, and right wing alumni groups paying students $100 to get evidence on liberal professors (Censoring Liberal Professors), why would it shock anyone that having a bumpersticker on your car would get you fired. "Look! Over there! It's a liberal!"

You know FISA accomplished the same goals, only legally. I know FISA accomplished the same goals, only legally. Even a complete simpleton could read it and know that FISA gave the Bush administartion everything that it could ever want to tap anyone that their hearts desired, and legally. Whether through stupidity, arrogance, or malfeasance, the Bush administration felt it necessary to skirt a law that even under the strictest interpretation gave them all the power they could have asked for, provided they just let a court, stacked in their favor BTW, for a warrant after the fact. It's like asking to use a car, having someone give you the keys, and you smash the window and hotwire it any way.

I watch it. It sort of lost some steam there a month ago, but has picked up since. I was really hoping the whiney reporter wife was going to split, or get killed off. The conspiracy-nut brother is great. I don't know if any of you have seen the movie "Broken Flowers", but you'll never look at Kira the same way again after that flick .

Wow...great minds, Ken. (although I would have left out the Dems, )

Peoples' heads would literally explode at that news. All of this could have been avoided had someone at some point said, "This looks like a good deal, but we might have to sell it to the american people first." I mean, what did they expect in an election year, when all across america people attack sikhs and hindus because they can't tell the difference between them and muslims? It doesn't make leading by trial balloon right, but they should've known that a significant number of americans hear "arab" and start reaching for their BB guns. You can't set people up like that for 6 years, then expect them to become rational about a mid-east company just becasue you said so.

I thought Elliot didn't do himself any favors last night, even though he was annoited "Best male singer ever" two weeks ago. Way to play the disability card, dude. I hate that Ace guy. Bucky stays another week because the rednecks can still vote for Pickler and ole Buck one more time. Next week they'll have to pick one or the other, and that split will spell doomsday for Bucky Skynrd. Will Makar killed himself off last night. Not even the Brady Bunch looks will save him this time. James Taylor? He was beating up Carly Simon years before any of Makar's fans were born. Horrible song choice. Covais really let me down last night. He was our shot at bringing down corporate rock, but it's not looking good. I hope to The-God-I-don't-believe-in that he gets enough pity and "stick it to the man" votes to carry him into the next round. Simon went out of his way to knock Chris down a peg after last week. Brillant psychological strategy on his part. It lets Chris' fans know that he can still be knocked off if they don't vote for him. Let's just say a couple thousand people who usually vote for him think he's safe, and take my advice and vote for Covais to bring down corporate rock. Chris could get bounced. By not lobbying for him, Simon was lobbying for him. You win this round, Cowell. From the men's side....adios Will and Gideon (that whole "making love to my grandmother" thing he said after he sang freaked me out). From the women's side....the floozy (melissa) and the beanpole (ayla) go. Kinnick should get the boot, but the tall one goes.

The internet has become a god-send for someone like me, because it's opened up the ability to scour the world for great punk rock and minor independent lables. There is so many free and legal mp3s out there, it boggles my mind that anyone would want to download some ancient classic rock relic illegally. Whether it's the european indy love-affair with Queers/Ramones/Screeching Weasle style pop-punk, the low-fi trash from Japan, or the groundbreaking stuff coming out of Norway and Scandinavia, it's pretty easy to not get complacent and dwell on the past. If anything, my need for 1-2-3-4 and a cloud of dust has grown with the digits in my age.

There have been multiple posts about David Gilmore and Donald Fagan, two artists that I find aurally objectionable, to put it mildly. But to each his own, I suppose. That being said, I’ve been doing a bit of reminiscing myself lately, pulling out some old vinyl classics and remembering when music still sounded fresh and exciting. In particular, the late 70s/early 80s west coast hardcore/punk scene. Just to show that not everyone pushing 40 and above listens to elevator music, here are my top five (although this list changes almost as quick as the tempo of the songs, and if you were to ask me an hour from now it would definitely change, or not…get out of my damn face). Circle Jerks-Group Sex Adolescents-Adolescents Dead Kennedys-Fresh Fruit for Rotting vegetables Germs-GI Flipper-the Love Canal/Ha Ha Ha 7” Why isn’t Fear-The Record, Black Flag-Damaged, X-Los Angeles or the Let Them Eat Jellybeans compilation on the list? Because I could only get five on the top five, not nine. Just stick’em in there somewhere yourself and leave me the hell alone. That’s my west coast list of some old vinyl I’ve recently dusted off from that time period. Anybody else hate long, boring songs and irrelevant nostalgia acts?

Blocked. 62-2. US House committee votes to keep Dubai firm from US ports

AVP, you've got to put up something quick or this crowd is gonna turn on you.

Now they're both gone. Bring back the squid! Bring back the squid!

It went from a sign I couldn't read, to what looks like a squid dissection. I don't know where you're going with that, but you've piqued my interest, man.

I've never seen it. Is that hack Bill Simmons still on it, or did he get fired from that job, too?

Nope. I'm 39, and formed my opinions over many years, many different locales, and many, many different careers. I grew up in upstate NY, in a very conservative area compared to where I am now. Just because you grew up in an era (or area, I'm probably a lot older than you thought I was, and you're probably a lot younger than I imagine you to be) where your educators didn't allow you to question anything, and pushed a Cleaver-like existence as reality on you doesn't mean it was right, nor does it mean your generation (or mine, because the same garbage was thrown at me) is any better off for having their heads stuck in the sand (or stuck somewhere else, for that matter).

I already did

"Bastards of young" by the Replacements. I've tried like hell to find the director's name to no avail.

So we can't use AP stories now on the PPP? Can I have a list of acceptable forms of media/news outlets that you will endorse so I can make a point in a post. As for the story, you just accused students of a frivolous protest. I haven't even seen that interpretation on The Drudge Report. You were rambling about god and banned pictures of presidents. I was just trying to make sense of your "argument." The point goes to you, I guess, because you clearly lost me. It's not a good example, though. If he was shouting about Sandanistas, death squads and Ollie North smuggling coke into the US in a 10th grade mathematics class, then yeah, I'd say he was way out of bounds, because politics doesn't belong in a math class any more than creationism belongs in a science class. It's not a rational discussion in the context of the subject. Jesus, man. Liberal media, liberal educators, liberal academics, and now your entertainment is overrun with lefties. How ever do you get through the day?

"Values" or "Views"? Important distinction. Discussing whether the Iraq war was an act of aggression vs. a proactive strike against terrorism is a far cry from "God hates fags." I'd have no problem if his "rant" was taken right out of Karl Rove's Book of Manifestos. Wouldn't it lead to the same discussion in a class studying the politics of geography as this guy's "rant" should have? If this was just some guy shooting his mouth , and not this guy's standard MO, then I'll be the first to admit I was wrong. I'd back the teaching style, though. But, so far, only one kid had a problem with it, and over 100 backed their teacher. We'll have to wait and see how the investigation plays out.

"Burnout", huh? Good shot. You liked it there, I hated every second I lived there. To each his own.

As usual, you're all over the map, which is kind of ironic considering the topic. Over 100 kids walked out to protest his suspension. Your take is that they were just being stupid kids. My take is to give them a little more credit for being young adults that wanted to show support for their teacher. My interpretation seems to jive better with the actual AP report...the one that says "Students stage walk-out to show support for Colorado high school teacher." You're right. Probably the liberal media making it up. You should take up your beef about seperation of church and state with the Supreme Court, and their interpretation of the First Amendment. You'll have to link to the story about the teacher and the picture of the President. I don't recall hearing about it, but it sounds like the teacher got screwed if that's all there was to the story. You're confusing several issues here. I believe a discussion involving the US and international geo-politics is perfectly reasonable to have in a high school geography class. As I previously replied to Joe, I'd have no issue if the teacher came from the other extreme. I think it's a good teaching technique. You don't. We'll have to agree to disagree, but I think you've got more of a problem with his side of the argument because it's not your view. That's just an educated guess, after having read many of your rants on this board. The problem with your second example is that a discussion of creationism doesn't belong in a science class. It belongs in a theology, or a philosophy class. I don't give a damn about people discussing creationism, as long as it's not done in a science class.

Well now. Since we grew up in the same town (can't remember if we went to the same HS), I'm gonna take that as a shot across my bow, sir.

I think the kids would be shocked, and would hope that they would go show him where that line of thinking is wrong, as the guy in your example asks them to do at the end. What you're doing, and others are doing, is taking a 20 minute sampling of a class in January. How do you know that he hasn't already reached some level of rapour (sic?) with these students? It's not like this is Geography class, day one. I'm assuming they've had him for the fall already, and that this is a year-long class. If he had started the year off with a rant out of nowhere in front of kids seeing him for the first time, then yeah, he'd be pretty shocking. But, from the numbers of students who walked out to protest his suspension, I'd say they weren't all that shocked, and his style clearly got through to them. Good teachers make their students think. Good teachers make their students form an opinion. One kid secretly tapes a class (gee, wonder where he got the idea to record a conversation without consent?) and brings it to a conservative talk show. That, to me, is more shocking than what this guy did for a lesson plan. "Look at the dissenting free thinker! Liberal! Liberal! He's making me learn and think for myself!" I will say this one more time. In two years, these kids get to vote, and get to go to war if they so choose. I see nothing wrong with engaging them in a discussion in international geo-politics.

You think it would take an entire high school year to teach them to point out Peru on a map? Wouldn't it make more sense to point to Peru and discuss the rise of leftist policies in South America, despite substantial US intervention? I don't think we give our youth enough credit. Yet we agonize over the stupidity/apathy of the american voter, who is only a few years older.

Why not? Geography, in the "country borders" sense, is politics. Why not give these kids a little credit for being young adults and set them loose to actually think about Peru, Bolivia, US intervention in South America, Afganistan, Iraq, Isreal and Palestine? They hear about it every single day on the news, on the internet, at the movies. What the hell good is it if they can point to India on a map, but not know why their father is about to lose his job to outsourcing? Wouldn't it be great to actually have kids that were informed voters by the time they reached 18...you know, roughly two years removed from 10th grade geography?